S.A. man to lead National Review Board

Ex-AACOG chief will guide panel that advisesU.S. bishops on dealing with abuse scandal.

By Abe Levyalevy@express-news.net

Updated 12:01 am, Saturday, April 2, 2011

A retired San Antonian is set to lead the national committee that advises U.S. bishops on the Catholic Church's response to the pedophile priest scandal.

In June, Al Notzon will become chairman of the National Review Board, created by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops nearly a decade ago when accusations of priests sexually abusing minors began to spread.

And at AACOG, he helped put the spotlight on interagency reporting of child abuse.

Atop Notzon's to-do list at the National Review Board will be sifting through a major study — expected for release as early as May — that takes a wide look at the abuse issue across institutions and society.

“The church did a good job of trying to get a handle on it,” Notzon said. “That's why we hired John Jay to give us that data, and once the study comes out, it'll help us see what are the issues for further review.

“Is it the formation of priests? Are there certain things that are the cause? The researchers will be telling us this.”

Victims groups will be watching, too.

They have been calling for greater accountability and transparency and do not believe the National Review Board has lived up to its own standards outlined in the 2002 “Dallas charter,” the policy on responding to sex abuse in the U.S. church.

Activists also have criticized the church itself on this front, and a past chairman of the National Review Board, former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, agreed with them. He resigned in protest in 2003, saying some U.S. bishops were resisting accountability.

Notzon insisted that reporting and accountability have improved since then as relationships among church officials, law enforcement and prosecutors have developed.

Still, he said it is important not to become complacent.

“You'll always have people in institutions who want to duck. Institutions by nature, whether schools or churches or government organizations, try to put their best light on a situation and be defensive about it,” he said.

“That's what works against what you want. I think you set up processes and procedures to make it harder for that to happen. The issue is to keep telling people why transparency is the best approach.”